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2 Table of Contents Acronyms...3 Executive summary Introduction Has human security improved? Contribution of the international community and the United Nations to human security Contribution of UNDP to human security Management and partnerships Lessons learned...31 Annex I: List of people consulted...33 Annex II: Bibliography

3 Acronyms CDF DDR DFID ECOMOG NGO RUF SRSG UNAMSIL UNDP Civil Defence Forces Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration Department for International Development Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group non-governmental organization Revolutionary United Front Special Representative of the Secretary-General United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone United Nations Development Programme 3

4 Executive summary Sierra Leone has been ravaged by a civil war that lasted from 1991 to 2002, and resulted in some 70,000 casualties and 2.6 million displaced people. The war was characterized by widespread atrocities, including the abduction of children and systematic rape. The conditions that led to the war included a repressive predatory state, dependence on mineral rents, the impact of structural adjustment, a large excluded youth population, the availability of small arms after the end of the Cold War, and interference from regional neighbours. Human security has now improved because the conflict is over and because of international presence. But the State is still very weak despite the extension of State authority and the establishment of local councils. Legal and security institutions are weak, corruption is endemic, and there is a pervasive distrust of politics. Civil society is also weak despite the key role played by it during the war, especially by women s groups. Youth unemployment is very high and youth literacy is very low. The situation of girls is particularly bad; some percent undergo female genital mutilation. There are some self-organized youth initiatives such as the Bike Riders Association or the Cassette Sellers Association, although they are also potential sources of youth disgruntlement. Since 2002, economic growth has been rapid but Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest countries in the world and near the bottom of the human development index. Regional instability could easily help to reignite the conflict. Since 2000, the international community, particularly the United Nations, has played a key role in sustaining the peace agreement. Between 2000 and 2002, the focus was on Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR), return and resettlement of displaced people, and the extension of State authority, both line ministries and traditional authorities. In addition, after 2002, the international community helped to implement the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy and National Recovery Strategy, which included the establishment of the Special Court and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, justice and security sector reform and poverty alleviation. Expenditure by the international community runs at 80 percent of gross national income and is more than double government expenditures. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has played a pivotal role both in strategic coordination and in filling gaps that other agencies are unable or unwilling to fill with targeted interventions. Since 2002, UNDP s programmes have covered three practice areas: 1) recovery and peace-building; 2) governance and democratic development; and 3) poverty reduction and human development. The first area is the largest. Particularly important projects include Arms for Development, an innovative community-based DDR programme; youth policy; support for elections, especially local elections; and access to justice. Sierra Leone provides a model for the integrated office concept, not least because of the roles of Alan Doss, the former Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), and Victor Angelo, the current SRSG. Alan Doss stressed the importance of integrated or coherent thinking and the need to involve the 4

5 development and humanitarian agencies in decision-making. Partnerships with other agencies have also been effective, at least in Freetown. Outside the capital, however, the problems of duplication and competition persist. A particular problem has been the difficulty faced by the Transition Support Teams, based within UNDP, in coordinating the transition from recovery to development. UNDP has been criticized by the Government for an over emphasis on direct implementation rather than on national implementation, though not by beneficiaries and civil society. A major problem is building national capacity in the context of such a large and effective international presence. UNDP is trying to achieve this through project implementation units, reforms of the senior levels of the civil service and partnership with the Ministry for Youth and Sports. UNDP is also widely criticized for bureaucracy and delays in payments. Overall, the international community has played a positive role. However, a big problem is that its very success detracts from the legitimacy of the Government. In addition, despite innovative community approaches, there is a need to generate jobs on a large scale and to improve the situation of women. In Sierra Leone, UNDP s gap-filling role has been rather effective because it has been demand driven rather than donor driven and because of the efficiency of local staff. However, more attention needs to be paid to civil society and gender. 5

6 1. Introduction The war in Sierra Leone lasted from March 1991, when a group of rebels backed by the Liberian leader Charles Taylor invaded the country from Liberia, to January 2002, when the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) in Sierra Leone declared the war over. There are no accurate statistics of the casualties, but conservative estimates suggest that 70,000 people were killed and roughly 2.6 million people, more than half the population, were displaced from their homes. The brutality of the war has been widely recorded; it involved hideous and often macabre atrocities on all sides against civilians, including widespread execution, amputation of limbs, lips and ears, decapitation and gang rape. Children were abducted to fight on all sides, and injected with drugs or given alcohol to give them courage. Criminals freed from prison were also mobilized. It was the experience of Sierra Leone that led Robert Kaplan to coin the term the coming anarchy. Table 1 below provides a chronology of the conflict in Sierra Leone. Table 1: Chronology of the conflict in Sierra Leone: March 1991: Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invades Sierra Leone with support from Liberia and Burkina Faso, led by Foday Sankoh. 29 April 1992: There is a coup against them authoritarian leader, Joseph Momoh. The National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) is formed, led by Captain Valentine Strasser. 1993: NPRC hires mercenaries including a Gurkha unit, which is later defeated. April-July 1995: A South African-led company, Executive Outcomes, expels the RUF from Freetown and the environs, retakes the bauxite and rutile mines, and secures the Kono diamond fields. Payment is cash and diamond concessions. August 1995: After massive demonstrations organized by women s groups, a National Consultative Conference is held. The conference calls for elections and for a negotiated settlement. March 1996: After Strasser is overthrown in a palace coup, elections are held. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a former United Nations employee, wins the elections. November 1996: The Abidjan peace accord is signed. It includes amnesty for RUF, transformation of RUF into a political party, disarmament and demobilization of combatants, reduction of armed forces, and withdrawal of Executive Outcomes. (Executive Outcomes is dismissed in January because Kabbah cannot pay them.) Within a few weeks, fighting resumes. March 1997: Foday Sankoh is arrested in Nigeria on weapons charges. 25 May 1997: A coup is orchestrated by junior officers calling themselves the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The new Leader is Major Johnny Paul Koroma. The junta suspends the constitution and invites the RUF to join them. There is widespread civil disobedience and international condemnation. Thousands flee Sierra Leone, including Kabbah and many civil society activists. 6

7 February 1998: Nigerian-led ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) forces overthrow AFRC. 6 January 1999: RUF and AFRC attack Freetown. After two weeks of fighting in which 5,000 6,000 people die and hundreds are mutilated, ECOMOG restores control. 7 July 1999: Signing of Lomé Peace Accord. The Accord includes power sharing between Government and rebels, blanket amnesty for rebels, disarmament and demobilization, and establishment of commissions for human rights and for truth and reconciliation. 22 October 1999: United Nations Security Council authorizes the establishment of a United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) of up to 6,000 troops including 260 unarmed observers, under Chapter VII (Resolution 1270). 7 February 2000: United Nations Security Council expands UNAMSIL to 11,100 troops. The Mission s mandate is also expanded to include provision of security at key locations in and near Freetown and at all disarmament sites. 1 May 2000: RUF seizes nearly 500 Kenyan and Zambian peacekeepers in remote locations in the north and east of the country. Britain sends 700 paratroopers to restore security in and around Freetown and to bolster the morale and resolve of peacekeepers. 8 May 2000: There is a massive civil society protest in Freetown, demanding the release of peacekeepers. 30,000 people move towards Sankoh s house; Sankoh s bodyguards open fire, killing 19 people and injuring dozens. Sankoh flees over a back wall in women s clothing. 17 May 2000: Sankoh is captured and arrested. 19 May 2000: United Nations Security Council authorizes a further increase in the strength of UNAMSIL up to 13,000 (Resolution 1299). June 2000: Most hostages are released after negotiations through Charles Taylor of Liberia. 5 July 2000: United Nations Security Council imposes an embargo on all rough diamonds from Sierra Leone, unless they have a Government of Sierra Leone Certificate of Origin (Resolution 1306). 22 July 2000: UNAMSIL s Operation Thunderbolt frees roadblocks between Freetown and the airport, and attacks the Occra base of the West Side Boys, a paramilitary group that includes RUF and AFRC personnel. 14 August 2000: United Nations Security Council authorizes the United Nations Secretary- General to negotiate the establishment of an independent Special Court to try persons responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian law, as well as crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law committed on the territory of Sierra Leone (Resolution 1315). 25 August 2000: Eleven British military personnel and one member of the Sierra Leone Army are taken hostage by the West Side Boys. 10 September 2000: A British rescue mission releases the hostages and attacks the West Side Boys base. Some West Side Boys are killed and many surrender as a result of both British attacks and Operation Thunderbolt. 20 September 2000: India announces the withdrawal of Indian troops from UNAMSIL following a disagreement between the Indian commander and Nigerian officials about the conduct of war. 19 October 2000: Jordan announces the withdrawal of Jordanian troops from UNAMSIL. 7

8 10 November 2000: A ceasefire is signed under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States in Abuja. Under the agreement, RUF agrees to free the movement of persons and goods throughout the country, to return seized weapons, and to disarm. UNAMSIL is also guaranteed free movement throughout Sierra Leone 30 March 2001: United Nations Security Council authorizes a further increase in UNAMSIL up to 17,500 troops (Resolution 1346), making it the largest peacekeeping mission in the world. 18 January 2002: The civil war is declared over and the final phase of disarmament and demobilization is completed. 14 May 2002: Presidential and Parliamentary Elections are held. 2003: A Special Court is established. 2004: Report of Truth and Reconciliation Commission is produced after two years work. June 2004: First local elections for 32 years are held. 31 December 2005: UNAMSIL mandate expires. The United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSL) is established under Security Council Resolution 1620 (2005). The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has played a pivotal role in Sierra Leone, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the role of UNDP from the role of the United Nations system as a whole. This was especially true after the introduction of the integrated mission in 2000, whereby the Deputy United Nations SRSG was also the UNDP Resident Representative, the Humanitarian Coordinator, and the Resident Coordinator. The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) ended its mission as of December United Nations peacekeepers have withdrawn and a new mission, the United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone, has begun. In many ways, both the UNDP and the UNAMSIL missions in Sierra Leone can be regarded as an emerging model of how to intervene in conflict situations. The substantial international presence is itself a guarantor of peace. The withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers and the change of mission have taken place peacefully. The Special Court, the Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) programme, the justice and security sector reform, and, above all, the assistance to the extension of State authority have all undoubtedly contributed to the consolidation of peace and the relatively positive human rights record. The Secretary-General in his report of December 2005 said that UNAMSIL had broken new ground in several respects. He mentioned, in particular, the integrated mission and the support for regional cooperation, the Mano River Union. It is for this reason that a case study of UNDP s role in Sierra Leone is particularly interesting. Despite the effectiveness of the mission, the structural conditions that led to the conflict still persist in particular, the weakness of the State and pervasive poverty and exclusion, especially among youth. It is precisely because the mission can be regarded as a textbook intervention, that it raises the dilemmas and challenges of outside intervention in a stark fashion. As one well-known Sierra Leonean journalist said to me, It was the worst of times and the best of times. 8

9 2. Has human security improved? Human security in Sierra Leone has improved because the conflict is over. A characteristic of this type of war is that it often exacerbates those factors that lead to war. In other words, consequences are also causes. The questions before us now are whether this was also true of Sierra Leone, to what extent the factors that led to the war are still present in Sierra Leone, and if the improvement in human security is sustainable. 2.1 The nature of the conflict The conflict was, in many ways, typical of a new war. The causes have to be sought in the weakness of State authority in the context of globalization. On the one hand, the one-party Government of the 1980s was deeply authoritarian and repressive, with pervasive corruption, patronage and mismanagement, and on the other hand, pressures from the outside for structural adjustment destroyed the revenue base of the Government and any remnants of service provision especially outside Freetown. By the time the war began, neglect, combined with poor roads and communication, meant that many regions and sections of society had lost contact with the Government. Moreover, the Government was increasingly perceived as being merely a source of money and/or intimidation. As David Keen emphasizes, the fighters on all sides were young, excluded and marginalized. It appears as if much of the violence in Sierra Leone in the 1990s can be explained as a succession of attempts by those who have felt excluded or forgotten to draw attention to their grievances, perhaps even their existence. Whenever one group managed to force its way into the inner circle (as in the May 1992 coup or the RUF acquisition of cabinet posts in 1999) there were always other groups left outside with an incentive to use violence to draw attention to their continuing grievances 1 Compounding the local sources of violence was the regional and global context. The war began in 1991 when a group of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led by Corporal Foday Sankoh attacked two small towns Sega and Bomaru in the Kailahun district with support from the Liberian leader Charles Taylor. At that time, surplus arms and mercenaries left over from the Cold War were becoming available to countries in Africa. The invasion was supported by Muammar al-gaddafi of Libya and Blaise Campoare of Burkina Faso, who are said to have developed a plan to conquer Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Gambia, all in the West African sub region. Their reasons have never been made clear but it is likely that access to mineral resources, especially diamonds, was an important motive. In many ways, this was raw conflict. Unlike most new wars, there was almost no veneer of ethnicity or even ideology. From time to time, the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) were said to be Mende militias ; the Mende CDFs became known as Karmajors formerly hunters of animals with mysterious powers. But there were also Temne CDFs. Or the RUF, on the other side, would be accused of being anti-mende but there were many Mende in the RUF ranks. There has also always been a divide 1 Keen, David, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone, Oxford: James Currey, 2005; p290 9

10 between the largely Creole elite in Freetown and those living in the rest of the country but the latter fought on all sides. There was an inchoate ideology but it was shared by all groups. As Keen points out, the pattern of conflict and collusion, the coming together of ostensible enemies was facilitated by the fact that fighters on opposing sides were often coming to the conflict with similar backgrounds and similar grievances (and sometimes from the same village or even family as their enemy ). Elements of a radical political analysis for example, critiques of chieftaincy and the APC/SCPP diarchy could be found among soldiers and CDF fighters as well as rebels and those not taking part in the fighting. 2 If there was any kind of identity, it was a youth identity the young against the old, who had failed the system. The desire and need of the youth for recognition and respect was widely expressed. But, of course, the young were the recruits on all sides. The brutal violence against civilians was typical of a new war. There is a debate among scholars about whether the motivations were economic (loot and pillage) or psychological (anger, shame and humiliation). But there is also a military logic to this seemingly irrational mode of fighting. In an era where all weapons are increasingly accurate and destructive, battles are costly and difficult to win. The best way to control territory is through control over or displacement of the population who live there. Terror is a technique for achieving territorial control. Dennis Bright, the Minister for Youth and Sports, talked about how the rebels enjoyed defying logic. But defying logic has its own logic as a way of instilling fear and submission. They had, as Bright put it, awesome power, a fearsome power over life and death. The aim of controlling territory is of course power, both political and economic. Because of the history of the one-party system, access to power was, and indeed often still is, equated with access to money. People tell of how the very young men who ruled during the military governments of and (National Provisional Ruling Council / Armed Forces Revolutionary Council) broke open the vaults and walked away with sackfuls of money. And, of course, control of diamond mines was critical in the eastern and southern territories towards the Liberian border. Thus the war economy was also typical of new wars. Because government revenue had collapsed, all sides were dependent on the spoils of war to finance their activities. These spoils ranged from loot and pillage (high), taxation of humanitarian aid (relatively low compared with other places) and, of course, diamond smuggling across the borders for the Mano River Union countries of Liberia and Guinea where the war lords (Charles Taylor and Blaise Campoare) were based. Hence the difficulty, which is at the heart of the greed and grievance debate, of distinguishing between the spoils of war as a motive for fighting (greed) or the spoils of war as a way of financing a war motivated by politics (grievance). 2 Keen, David, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone, Oxford: James Currey, 2005, p295 10

11 Thus the key factors that created the conditions for the war were the weakness of the State, growing exclusion and marginalization, especially among young people, and the regional context. The first two factors, at least, were greatly exacerbated by the war. 2.2 Weak State The capacity of the Government, which was already coined by William Reno as a shadow state, was further eroded by the war indeed, it was all but destroyed outside Freetown. Despite the efforts to reconstruct State authority (see below), and despite national and local elections that have been relatively free and fair, the legitimacy of the Government remains weak. The reasons include endemic corruption (largely because of the low salaries of public servants), lack of justice (due to the collapse of the legal system and corruption), poor service delivery, especially of basics like water, electricity, transport, or health, and lack of transparency. A recent report by the International Crisis Group suggests that, at best, a failed State has been replaced by a shadow State (ICG 2005). There are some positive developments as well, which include the new local councils, although they are not yet properly functioning; the new National Election Commission created after the previous commission was dissolved because of election irregularities; and the new pioneering Ministry of Youth and Sports. But the question remains as to whether these new initiatives will be able to overcome the pervasive distrust of politics, inherited from decades of poor governance, and the huge gap between the political class and ordinary people, especially young people. Security and rule of law The United Nations handed over responsibility for maintaining security to national security agencies in While there are no longer any illegal armed groups, public confidence in the capacity of the security institutions to maintain security has not yet been established. The armed forces are being downsized from 13,000 to 10,500 (to be completed by 2007) and this, together with inadequate infrastructure, is contributing to disaffection within the armed forces (United Nations S/2005/777). The situation of the police is said to be better. The current strength of the police force is 7,500, with plans to increase the numbers to 9,500. Police are deployed throughout Sierra Leone. The establishment of local and provincial security committees throughout the country, with what the Office of National Security described as a holistic approach to security, has been an important factor in defusing tensions. Nevertheless, the symbolic presence of the United Nations and the British military advisory team is still seen by most Sierra Leoneans as the guarantee of stability. The judiciary is also very weak and this, together with very high levels of poverty and deprivation, contributes to everyday crime. Nevertheless, as the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in February 2006: Generally, there is an increasing trend towards respect for the life and security of the person. The only pervasive pattern of human rights violations is female genital mutilation (United Nations E/CN.4/2006/16 paragraph 5) There are no political prisoners. However, civil society activists who we interviewed raised a couple of cases as examples of threats to human rights. Charles 11

12 Magai, a veteran politician who resigned from the ruling party after failing to be elected leader, was arrested in late 2005 on an 11-count indictment including campaigning under the banner of an unregistered party. A journalist, Paul Kamara, was arrested under the Public Order Act but released in November 2005, on appeal to the High Court. Civil society The war also greatly weakened civil society. It is the task of the civil society to close the gap between the political class and ordinary people. During the period of oneparty rule before the war, civil society was largely co-opted by the State. Moreover, the decline of public services, especially education, undermined the human and financial resources available for civil society. During the war, civil society efforts played a key role at certain significant moments. In particular, the creation of the Sierra Leone Women s Movement for Peace played a crucial role in 1995, creating the conditions for the end of military rule and the elections of 1996, which brought Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (former United Nations employee) to power and paved the way for the first peace agreement. However, women were marginalized both in the agreement and in the newly elected Government. The Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone created in 1997 also became a mechanism for facilitating the peace process and for confidence building measures. But when the rebels invaded Freetown in January 1999, they targeted civil society activists and many were killed or fled the country. Another important moment was the civil society protest outside Foday Sankoh s house in May 2000, after hundreds of United Nations peacekeepers had been taken hostage. This protest eventually led to Sankoh s capture and arrest. Although civil society has been supported by the international community in the postconflict period, it lacks the capacity to offer a meaningful channel for the voices of the poor and excluded. 2.3 The situation of the youth The younger generation emerged from the war jobless and without skills because they missed years of schooling, having been both agents and victims of horrifying behaviour. The youth numbers 1.6 million or 34 percent of the population. Seventy percent of the combatants were people aged between 12 and 35 and only 5 percent were literate. A household survey undertaken in showed that 58 percent of young people are unemployed (Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone, March 2005). During the war, commanders in all the fighting forces used and misused young fighters and threatened them with summary execution if they resisted; for instance, they would make these fighters work from dawn till dusk in diamond pits with no remuneration. These commanders are still powerful; they often joined in the DDR process by including civilian dependents as registered ex-combatants while excluding the real ex-combatants. In a way, the war involved a process of forced urbanization many young people were forced to leave their villages and many are now reluctant to return, even though unemployment is high in the towns. In the villages, where bride prices are very high, many youths are often virtual slaves as they have to work for several years for the parents of a girl they may want to marry. Lack of access to land (in rural areas) 12

13 and to mineral resources (diamond, gold, etc.) because of very high registration and licensing procedures and costs, and difficulty of obtaining information, compounds the marginalization of youth. The situation for girls, both in towns and villages, is even worse; domestic violence is widespread but unreported and some 80 to 90 percent of girls undergo female genital mutilation. Very few young women can be seen on the streets except at night, mainly, it is said, for reasons of shame. Everyone talks about the disgruntled youth who express their frustrations through popular music, which plays everywhere. There is a lot of talk about the dependency syndrome the notion that young people believe the Government owes them a living and that corruption is always somewhere else l enfer c est les autres or Hell is other people, as Dennis Bright put it. Yet even among the younger generation, there are some positive trends. In our efforts to interview disgruntled youth, we visited three organizations that were reputed to be hotbeds of disgruntlement the Bike Riders Association, the Car Wash Boys, and the Cassette Sellers Association. The first group consists largely of excombatants, many of whom stole motorbikes during the war. Now they make a living giving people rides for 1000 leones (30 cents) per ride. They pay 25,000 leones to join the association and they receive an identity card and maintenance support, as well as a place to meet and talk. The Association has some 3,000 members. Some of them are legitimate with commercial vehicles (red licence plates) and driving licences, but many are not. There have been major clashes with the police that have raised fears of renewed fighting, but the Bike Riders of Bo told us that they had started a dialogue with the police and that the situation was improving. They said that while they were still frustrated with the political system, they were better off than during the war and they preferred to bring about change through the ballot box rather than through fighting. The Car Wash Boys, as their name suggests, wash cars and are starting to do car decorations and basic maintenance/servicing of vehicles; they are a smaller organization than the Bike Riders Association (only 17 members) but they expressed similar sentiments. Finally, the Cassette Sellers Association has 3,096 members and offices all over Sierra Leone. The Association was founded in 1992, but really grew in membership after the war. It involves ex-combatants who have gone through the DDR process. They apply to join and if accepted they have to pay a small fee. They buy their own cassettes and CDs from the Association at reduced costs and the Association helps them set up in particular areas and sometimes provides small loans. Interestingly, the small office of the Association had a picture of the President on the wall, as well as the Sierra Leonean national pledge. All three organizations are self-organized and have never received assistance from international agencies or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 3 They have, however, all asked for support, and have prepared proposals. The Car Wash Boys actually employed an architect for 300,000 leones ($100) to design a building with 3 The Bike Riders Association participated in an NGO-organized seminar on traffic management. The Car Wash boys complained that they had received a visit from the Crown Prince of Norway and that they had given him lunch and had not received a penny in return! 13

14 offices and workshops. The Cassette Sellers would like to acquire equipment to burn their own CDs and to start an outlet in London for Sierra Leonean music. They all say that the youth have changed as a result of the war. Sierra Leone is not the same country as before the war said one civil society activist. War has made us very wise, said the Accident and Safety officer of the Bike Riders Association. Things we didn t know we know now. We know our rights. There are other, similar organizations like the dollar boys, who change money (informal foreign exchange bureaus), or the King Jimmy Boys (commonly called Jew Men) in Freetown. The latter look for people who have new or used articles such as TVs, tape recorders or freezers, which they sell for a small profit (sometimes they even market stolen articles). These boys have a code of conduct and a well disciplined social structure: every article collected must be reported to the Association and the owners of the articles must receive the monies agreed on after sales. Nevertheless, these associations represent only a small proportion of the total youth population. Not all young people feel empowered; so many have been brutalized, especially girls. It was noteworthy that there were no girls among these groups. One person summarized the situation of the youth as turbulent. Dennis Bright said that many were just sinking. While the youth may not want to go back to war, there still exists a lot of potential for instability. The legitimacy of the Government and the attitudes of young people are mutually reinforcing. If the Government can improve service delivery, reduce corruption and generate jobs, this will help encourage more positive attitudes among the youth. On the other hand, failure to meet the very difficult challenges faced by the Government could reinforce the sense of negativity among the youth. 2.4 The regional context These local factors are compounded by the regional context. Although there is now relative peace in Liberia, many ex-combatants and weapons caches have moved to Guinea and Cote d Ivoire, and illicit diamond mining still accounts for half of Sierra Leonean production. Indeed, the International Crisis Group quotes a DDR specialist as saying that the best disarmament initiative in Sierra Leone has been the continued fighting in the region 4. This of course always has the potential to boomerang, and lead to renewed conflict in Sierra Leone. High levels of youth unemployment are a characteristic of the whole region and a continuing source of instability (see United Nations Office for West Africa, December 2005). A recent report by the Human Rights Watch describes the activities of thousands of regional warriors, young men for whom fighting is a career, most of them originally forcibly recruited to fight in Liberia and Sierra Leone 5. 4 International Crisis Group, 'Liberia and Sierra Leone: Rebuilding Failed States', Africa Report N 87, 8 December Human Rights Watch, Youth, Blood and Poverty: The Lethal Legacy of West Africa s Regional Warriors,

15 2.5 Economic insecurity During the war, the economy plummeted. Gross domestic product was halved during the 1990s, reaching US $142 per capita in According to the Government s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, Local community, social and productive infrastructure such as markets, stores, rice mills and community service buildings were completely vandalized. Livestock was almost completely wiped out. Mining and agriculture were ravaged and abandoned... (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper 2005). Economic growth has been rapid since the war ended with rates of 6 and 7 percent projected for 2006 and Nevertheless, Sierra Leone is heavily indebted and dependent on external aid. In 2004, aid was running at US $360 million or 34 percent of GDP and debt was estimated at US $1.6 billion or 205 percent of GDP. Before the war, the mining sector (diamonds, gold, rutile and bauxite) accounted for 20 percent of government revenue and 90 percent of exports. Even before the war began, legal exports fell dramatically because of corruption. Today, there are some 100,000 workers engaged in mining, mainly small-scale artisanal mining. Various measures, including licensing and the Kimberly process, have helped diamond exports to gradually increase, reaching US $125 million in But mining is unlikely to provide a self-sustaining source for development in the future, underlining Sierra Leone s precarious economy. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world. In 2004, it was at bottom of the human development index. According to the global human development report, in the period , 57 percent of the population lived below US $1 a day and 75 percent lived below US $2 a day. An estimate by the United Nations Country Team suggested that 82 percent of the population lived below US $1 a day in the same period (United Nations Development Assistance Framework, March 2003). Life expectancy declined from 42 years in 1990 to 34 years in 2000 and has now crept up to 40 years. Adult literacy at 31 percent is one of the lowest in the world and is much lower for women; only 18 percent of women can read in English compared with 35 percent of males, and only 19 percent of women can do written calculations compared with 37 percent of males. 15

16 3. Contribution of the international community and the United Nations to human security There were three outside interventions before the establishment of the United Nations Mission in The first outside intervention occurred in 1993, when the Gurkha Security Group, a private security company mainly made up of Nepalese Gurkhas, was hired by the Government; it was forced to withdraw after suffering heavy casualties, including the murder of its American commander, Robert Mackenzie. Then in 1995, the private South African company Executive Outcomes repelled an RUF attack on Freetown. However, after the elections of 1996 and the Abidjan peace agreement, the then newly elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah dismissed Executive Outcomes because he lacked sufficient funding as a result of an International Monetary Fund structural adjustment plan. President Kabbah was forced to flee the country after a coup orchestrated by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, but eventually returned to power as a result of an intervention by the Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) force in February 1998 (the third outside intervention). As a leading civil society activist explained, the only people who have ever successfully subdued the RUF are the Executive Outcomes and the ECOMOG. This is why Sierra Leoneans have very fond memories of the two forces and always want them to stay. (Quoted in Kaldor, 2001). The evolution of the United Nations intervention in the region can be viewed as a kind of learning process in which different approaches were tested. The Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SLTRC), in its final report, lamented the fact that the international community, apart from the ECOWAS states, declined to intervene in the unfolding human catastrophe in Sierra Leone until at a very late stage. (Introduction SLTRC). In October 1999, the United Nations Security Council authorized the establishment of UNAMSIL, which replaced the United Nations Observer Mission set up in At that time, up to 6,000 troops were authorized. UNAMSIL s mission was to assist in the implementation of the 1999 Lomè Agreement. The Agreement included a blanket amnesty as well as important positions in Government for the rebels. As the then American Ambassador, John Hirsch (2001, p.80), put it, For the democratic forces, the Lomé negotiations were a bitter and painful reversal from the international ostracism of the RUF almost two years earlier. The Agreement was criticized by Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and several international NGOs, primarily for the blanket amnesty. In a letter to the United Nations Security Council dated 19 May 2000, Human Rights Watch requested the setting up of an International Criminal Tribunal for Sierra Leone as well as confirmation of Mary Robinson s position that the Agreement could not apply to crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law (Quoted in Kaldor, 2001) The Mission also included an explicit mandate, under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence. In February 2000, UNAMSIL s troops were increased to 11,100 and its mandate further extended to include the provision of security at key locations in and 16

17 near Freetown and at all disarmament sites. Despite the mandate, UNAMSIL was very slow to implement the disarmament and demobilization provisions of the agreement and was considered insufficiently robust in protecting civilians. In May, the RUF attacked United Nations personnel; several troops were killed and some 500 taken hostage. At this point, the British sent to Sierra Leone some 700 troops, who were welltrained and well-equipped and given a robust mandate; they helped to protect the capital and to create the conditions for the release of the hostages. The United Nations troops were also increased to 13,000 and began to act more robustly, as in Operation Thunderbolt when the road between Freetown and the airport was freed. In August 2000, 11 British soldiers were also captured by the rebels. Five were released and the remaining six were rescued in September. In the process, the notorious West Side Boys, one of the most brutal rebel groups, was rounded up. British troops later withdrew, but additional reinforcements were announced in October; emphasis was placed on training the army and the police. The Indian and Jordanian United Nations contingents also withdrew after the Indian commander, Major-General Vijay Jetley, wrote a secret memorandum to the Security Council accusing Nigerian officials, including the United Nations Special Representative and the UNAMSIL deputy commander, of colluding with the rebels. A new ceasefire agreement was signed in November Other measures taken by the United Nations included further strengthening of UNAMSIL and the DDR process, the imposition of an arms embargo and a diamond embargo on Liberia (from where rebel diamonds are exported), the introduction of diamond certification, and the establishment of a war crimes tribunal. It was also in 2000 that Alan Doss was appointed as Deputy SRSG for Governance and Stabilization, combining the posts of Humanitarian Coordinator, Resident Representative and Resident Coordinator. Until January 2002, the main focus of the international community s efforts was the DDR process, the return and resettlement of displaced people, and the extension of State authority throughout the country, including line ministries and traditional authorities the paramount chiefs. The war was declared over on 18 January 2002, and disarmament and demobilization was completed. A total of 72,490 combatants had been disarmed and 71,043 demobilized, including 6,845 child soldiers (506 girls) and 4,651 women (Alan Doss 2004). The DDR process was extremely important both as a means of eliminating illegal armed groups and in symbolic terms. It was, however, primarily a demobilization process and was less successful in collecting weapons. UNDP estimated that only between 2 and 10 percent of the total weapons in the country were collected 6. Some 34,419 small arms and light weapons were collected (UNDP/ Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone 2003). Nor was the DDR process very successful in terms of reintegration. A reinsertion benefit was paid to each entitled ex-combatant and over 50,000 registered for the Reintegration Support Programme. Most participated in the Reintegration Opportunities Programme where they learned skills and received tool kits. 7 The Programme was completed in June However, a weakness of the Programme was that skills were not matched 6 United Nations Development Programme, Country Report: Sierra Leone, 2005a 7 As of June 2005, a total of 17,981 had completed vocational training and a further 10,572 were registered; 7,233 had chosen to return to formal education; some 9,342 were beneficiaries in agriculture ; and 798 were found job placements (Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone, June 2005). 17

18 to demand and because they were offered on an individual basis, many ex-combatants chose to sell their toolkits. As Bengt Ljunggren, senior advisor for recovery put it, The choice of name, Reintegration Opportunities Programme, was accurate as not properly addressing reintegration from the perspective of community strengthening and involvement but solely focussing on the immediate needs of the ex-combatants, without contributing to the rehabilitation or creation of sustainable institutions. It was more of a time-buying concept. (Ljunggren and Molloy, cited in International Crisis Group 2004.) Another criticism from women s organizations was that DDR really marginalized the girls After completion of the demobilization programmes, UNAMSIL and the United Nations Country Team, in conjunction with their international partners, developed the United Nations Peace-Building and Recovery Strategy and its operational counterpart, the United Nations Development Assistance Framework. The Strategy aimed to plan the transition from relief to development and from peacekeeping to peace-building (United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2003), and to support the Government s own programmes, the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy and the National Recovery Strategy. Key elements of the programme included the continued extension of State authority, continued efforts at reintegration of ex-combatants and resettlement of displaced persons, the setting up of the Special Court and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, economic recovery including the restoration of agriculture and mining, justice and security sector reform, and poverty reduction. Transition Support Teams were established by the United Nations Country Team in 2004 to support the implementation of the National Recovery Strategy and the transition from relief to development. I met some energetic and creative members of the teams both in the field and at headquarters. The International Crisis Group has criticized the international community s intervention on the grounds that it treated peace-building as an operational checklist. Although one can always criticize the short time frames, the degree of consultation, the tendency for recovery as opposed to reform, or the implementation of particular programmes, it is difficult to see how else peace-building can be undertaken except through some sort of checklist. In the case of Sierra Leone, the checklist did represent, after 2000, an innovative response to the specific challenges of this new type of conflict. The main question that arises is directly related to the (financial) scale of the international intervention in Sierra Leone, which is considerably larger than expenditure by the Sierra Leonean Government. Moreover, around half of Government expenditure is financed from abroad. Table 2: Comparison of international and Government expenditures (US $ million) Overseas Development Assistance $353 $303 $360 UNAMSIL* $617 $603 $449 Sierra Leonean Government Expenditures $240 $256 $338 18

19 Gross National Income $936 $1010 $1080 * Financial year rather than calendar year Sources: OECD, PRSP 2005, IMF 2004, UNAMSIL URL It can be argued that this kind of intervention can paradoxically actually weaken the legitimacy of the State because the United Nations has created parallel structures that spend and deliver more than the State itself. The United Nations system and indeed the whole international presence, is a kind of parallel neo-colonial state that is more popular than the State itself (beneficiaries clap enthusiastically when the United Nations is mentioned). From my interviews it is evident that the United Nations is much more trusted than the Government. The question arises whether the very success of the United Nations undermines the prospects for the Sierra Leonean State. Despite efforts to stimulate self-generating development, external assistance is a form of dependence, so does this outside help reinforce the dependency syndrome? I was struck in interviews by the contrast between the somewhat submissive beneficiaries of United Nations programmes and the aggressive confidence of the self-organized youth associations described above. The challenge is how to channel the energies of the latter so that they can contribute to self-sustaining development. This dilemma is closely linked, though not identical to the capacity problem. In all such interventions, the salary gap between international agencies and NGOs on the one hand, and Governments on the other, weakens national capacity. The difficulty faced by the Government in overcoming the syndrome of low pay for civil servants, lack of highly skilled personnel and corruption, is exacerbated by the presence of the international community who absorb the best local talent. 19

20 4. Contribution of UNDP to human security UNDP has played a pivotal role in Sierra Leone for several reasons. First of all, UNDP has been in Sierra Leone before, during and after the war. Several people interviewed mentioned the role of Elisabeth Luanda in the 1990s; it was said that UNDP had played a key role both in various peace processes and in helping the Government, especially when it went into exile in Guinea in 1997, to formulate a development plan. Many of the ideas about decentralization were reportedly initiated at this time. Secondly, the key position of Alan Doss as Deputy SRSG gave UNDP an edge in strategic planning and in implementing recovery. Thirdly, the ability of UNDP to fast-track programmes and to quickly respond to urgent needs that other agencies were unable or unwilling to meet was particularly important in the final stages of the conflict and the immediate recovery period. In the period , UNDP took the lead in helping the Government to formulate the National Recovery Strategy, and to prioritize the extension of State authority, including the deployment of administrative offices in all districts and the return of the traditional authorities, the paramount chiefs. UNDP also played a key role in the third and final phase of DDR. In addition, it supported the repatriation and resettlement of internally displaced persons and refugees some 300,000 returned in that period as well as economic recovery. UNDP was reformed in 2002, when practice areas and the Atlas system were introduced. Since then, UNDP has had three practice areas: recovery and peacebuilding; governance and democratic development; and poverty and human development. The breakdown and content of these three areas for 2004 is summarized in Table 3 below. Table 3: UNDP programme 2004 Practice area/programme Recovery and peace-building Consolidation of State authority Community-based reconciliation and security National Disaster and Risk Management Policy Activities Budget (US $) Expenditure (US $) Construction and rehabilitation of facilities for police, prisons and magistrate courts. Various measures to reduce weapons, including legislation, community-based weapons collection, prevention of arms trafficking, and community recovery and development in border areas. Conducting risk assessment, developing a risk assessment and emergency response plan, and establishing an 13,758,000 5, 971,010 3,435,000 1,830,000 2,194, ,981 20

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